Hi again. Fresh new college student here to write about her first-semester experience. As with anything in life, college is what you make it. And I have made a wonderful life for myself in West Lafayette (never did I think those words would come out of my mouth). Then again, I've always known that life is better when you look for its silver linings, and Purdue has so many of those.
Here are some silver linings, lessons, and anecdotes I've collected over the past four months:
Saturday, August 14th was a very hard goodbye and one of the most terrifying but exciting days of my life. After spending the first two weeks of the month squeezing in as many hometown goodbyes as I could, I was faced with the wide-open possibilities of college. I was here. I had set up my area of the dorm room. I had fussed over every command hook and every desk drawer. It was time to say goodbye to Mom and Dad, and I told myself I was not going to cry. Tear ducts said no. So there I was, sitting on my new comforter with no clue what to do with myself, puffy-eyed, and on my own for the first time in 18 years. How little I knew what awaited.
Republican men use too much tongue.
You will tell yourself you'll go to bed at a reasonable hour and find yourself, if you're lucky, up at 3:00am talking and laughing with the best roomies the universe (and the university) could have paired you with.
Opening the first care package from your parents is a very memorable moment. It feels like a warm embrace and a sweet reminder of home.
If your campus has a farmers market, GO. Lilly and I went every Thursday after lunch without fail. One of the highlights of my first semester.
Ten-minute power naps are a lifesaver. Doesn't matter if you're in a crowded study space, your dorm, or a residence hall common area. Cast aside your dignity (very little of that remains in tact after the first few weeks anyway), and give your body the rest it so desperately needs. I will champion this cause until the day I die.
If a boy likes you, he might listen to your Spotify playlists. And you might call your mom, text your closest friends, and post it on your private story.
If you are without a car on campus, invest in an alternate mode of transportation with wheels. Bike, longboard, skateboard, scooter, Heelys if you're cool, please God not a one-wheel. I have White Wave's "The Missile" skateboard and I love it. For someone who is always running late, this changes everything. You also look cool.
Work outside as long into the year as weather permits.
It's refreshingly normal to do things alone and to be alone here at college. Back home, the most I would do is take myself out for coffee and read at a corner table. But when you're on completely different class schedules as all your friends and some of you sleep until 1:00 in the afternoon and others have classes on the complete opposite side of campus, having a constant companion isn't as built-in as it was in the structured comfortability of high school. I have learned to love being alone. To walk to a dining court between classes and eat by myself (no one bats an eye), to study in a crowded study space without the company of friends, to stay in on a Friday night if I feel too tired to get ready. I cannot emphasize this enough. It's so freeing finally getting to that age and stumbling upon the not-so secret that being alone is the easiest gift you can give yourself.
Call your parents, you guys. 🙄
Sometimes you will get to know someone who becomes one of your closest friends on a random Monday afternoon in September while scootering to the nearest Goodwill 20+ minutes away, both sweaty and crammed onto a scooter meant for one, with the imminent fear of tipping over on the scooter that hardly mattered because he was telling you about all his cats and you were enjoying listening and laughing too much to care. He will become someone you study with every night for a month straight and the one who walks you home afterward every time without fail.
There is no high quite like the one you get from turning in an essay at 11:57pm.
Vegetarian chicken nuggets at any of the dining courts makes my entire day. And DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE FISH FILLETS. Meryl will back me up here.
The first time your parents come to visit you on campus is one of the best days, I'm convinced, of your whole college career. I forget how lucky I am. Amidst the excitement and the unknown. Finally becoming the adult I'd spent the past four years trying to be. Buying my own groceries, separating darks from lights, being my own reminder if I want to get things done, scheduling all my own appointments. But the night before my parents got to campus, I could hardly sleep, and it was then that I realized just how much I had missed them that first month of school. No matter how old you get or how old you think you’ve gotten, that's not going to change I don't think. It was so nice to hug them again and to talk their ears off while showing them around campus. When they left, I felt so re-energized. It is such a sweet reminder that as old as you get, as many mistakes as you're bound to make, as far as you stray from the person you once were, you will always be the apple of someone's eye. You will always be someone's beloved, and that is such a gift I hope everyone knows at least once in their lives.
WASH YOUR BEDSHEETS, YA NASTY.
The guy I dated in high school loved hammocking. Like loved it. The Bear Grylls of hammocking. I enjoyed it because he did, but I never understood why he treated it like a first love. Now I get it. My $20 hammock off Amazon was one of the wisest purchases of my freshman year. Hammocking with friends, reading when I need a break from homework, swinging gently while working because I need to be in constant motion. And hammock naps in mid-September? Nothing better. Sorry, Will. I get it now. You weren't right about some things, but you were right about this one.
One thing to know about me is that no matter how much work I have to do or how much I say I don't have any free time, I will find a way to binge the new season of Sex Education in four days.
You and your roomies can be the hottest sexiest funniest most amazing people and the barely-famous white TikTok boys who go to Purdue will ignore your DMs.
Going to different schools has NOTHING on you and your dearest friend. You will continue to text nearly every day and when a few days go by, you pick up right where you left off. You will continue to send each other TikToks that occasionally make the other question your mental wellbeing. And you will continue to love and support each other fiercely no matter how many miles separate you.
I am literally opening myself up to the most ridicule by saying this, but if you have an urge to do or say something to someone, do it. Some guy working next to me in WALC (a study building) offered me a piece of gum and I still remember it. I was skateboarding to meet a friend for lunch and a guy in the other lane high-fived me as we passed. Made my entire day. Some guy came up to me at the gym and introduced himself because he said he sees me there all the time. I was talking to Cami in Starbucks and the girl sitting across from us goes, "I don't mean to eavesdrop, but you guys are so funny." And any time someone compliments my outfit? Another day I can die happy. Invite someone to dinner. Ask your crush to study with you. Comment on a girl's Instagram who you don't really know but follow for some reason. Tell someone when a song reminds you of them. Push send. Smile at the person with whom you make awkward eye contact and the awkwardness not-so-remarkably dissipates. You guys are so cool and important and have the beautiful human capacity to make someone's day. I hope you use it.
Made a nine-page research paper my bitch.
Older students who bring their dogs to campus don’t deserve the Nobel but definitely something similar.
Dangerous, lethal hack: if you find yourself crushing on someone and want a general idea of who they are as a person, follow on Instagram, go to their Following, and type "real" into the search bar (@realdonaldtrump, @realcandaceowens, etc.). Sometimes @werenotreallystrangers will come up and that is a much more promising sign.
This year, I participated in No Men November. You may be asking me, "what is that, Kate? I've never heard of it." This is because I created it myself. No Nut November and No Nic November didn't feel right, but I still needed a challenge. Thus, No Men November was born. My mom coined it "Nomenber," a phrase that will not be gaining any traction. By the end of the month, I wasn't creating scenarios before bed or feeling terribly sad about third-wheeling Miles and Jacob. Dare you to try it when November rolls around.
The sun sometimes decides to wait all day to come out until the evening, but this can make our darker days a bit brighter and our already-good days even better. Walking out of dinner to a pretty sunset gives me the extra motivation I need to have a productive evening. I think there's a metaphor for life in there somewhere, too.
The new music I've been recommended, the mannerisms I've picked up from those I spend too much time with, the conversations about politics I've engaged in because now we're the adults we once used to roll our eyes at. I met Hot Ginger in one of my classes and we did not see eye to eye on hardly anything. We argued loads and laughed tons and formed a good friendship over the course of the semester, so I thank college for bringing me to the doorsteps of so many different kinds of people.
Back in September, soon before her semester was unfairly cut short, Peyton and I did a night ride on our longboards. We have been friends for almost seven years, but this night is one of my favorite memories of us. We hadn't been at Purdue for more than a month. Nothing had its newness completely rubbed off yet. Campus still seemed impossibly big and I still had to sneak Google Maps to find new buildings. I wasn't homesick, but Peyton was a comfort person in this entirely new chapter of ours. So that night ride lives as a warm memory in my mind. I can't find the words to express how refreshed and eased and thankful I felt after that ride, so I hope you felt the feeling too, Peyton. Night ride when you’re back, or else...
Red flags I've observed while on campus: says Asian girls are their type (or has dating history that does the talking for them), wears crocs to the gym, uses the phrase "fiscally conservative, socially liberal," thinks Ford is the best dining court, unironically thinks After is a good movie, freestyles on the first date, downloads Tinder and won't stop talking about their matches, has no decor on the walls, actually uses the term "geed," types in all lowercase, NAME RHYMES WITH BIGUEL, plays Juice WRLD while on the speaker, claims they "don't see it" when you bring up Jaden Ivey, has a dangly cross earring, uses 3-in-1, has a fitness page, wears an Apple Watch, has any Instagram posts tagged at A Young Life Camp, finds oversaturated memes the pinnacle of comedy, strongly opposes men painting their nails
Many of us enter college with the idea that we can--and will--change the parts of ourselves we don't like, will reinvent ourselves into brighter, shinier, cooler versions of ourselves. Shedding certain masks just to don new ones. Did I have this hope back in August? Not really. Maybe a little bit. I was pretty okay with who I was. This is lucky for me, because of all my high school reputations, the most mundane and unimpressive one has stuck. My embarrassingly studious knack for peer reviewing papers. How this happened, I have no idea. In high school, I had close friends and mere acquaintances alike texting me with the same favor to ask, and I was happy to oblige. I, inexplicably, enjoy doing it. So I'll never turn you down. I can laugh at it though. Especially when thinking about Jacob's SCLA paper I had to wade my way through.
As I'm sure you can tell, first semester treated me very well. It wasn't without its slept-through alarms or extreme feelings of overwhelm, but the glorious, sunny days far outnumbered the cloudy ones. On the drive down to West Lafayette way back in August, I was excited more than anything. I had no idea what was in store for me, no idea the people I'd meet and the late nights I'd share with the best company, the Titos I'd learn to keep down and sleep off, the unprecedented amount of reading I'd have to slog through and annotate, the 3:00am laughter I'd have to suppress from the RA, the amount of microwaveable Annie's mac 'n' cheese I'd eat.
But I'm on the other side of it now, and I have never been more excited (and anxious) for another semester of the same. College fits me like a glove; I love the open-endeds and the firsts. The independence, the individuality, the realized understanding that we owe it to ourselves--and have the facilities--to pursue what calls our names and to live bigger than the people we let ourselves be in high school.
I am so very thankful to those of you who have made Purdue feel like home (and to anyone who was kind and patient enough to read this). Cheers to a successful first semester, to you, and to whatever may come our way. BOILER UP.
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